Map - Katanning, Western Australia (Katanning)

Katanning (Katanning)
Katanning is a town located 277 km south-east of Perth, Western Australia on the Great Southern Highway. At the 2016 census, Katanning had a population of 3,687.

The name Katanning is derived from the native name for a camping place. That native name for the camp was 'Kartannup' - 'Kart' meaning head and 'annup' meaning meeting or camping place. In the very early days before town settlement, a big tribe of natives lived in the area. When the tribe of another district would visit annually, Kartannup was the head camp or meeting place. In the 21st century, in one of the many possible examples of the attempted re-writing of history, some have tried to suggest that Kartanup, means "clear pool of sweet water", or that Katanning, means "spiders on your back". Others suggest that the place is named after a local Aboriginal woman.

The first Europeans to explore the Katanning area were Governor James Stirling and Surveyor General John Septimus Roe who travelled through the area in 1835 en route from Perth to Albany.

In about 1870, sandalwood cutters moved into the area but they did not settle. It was not until the development of the Great Southern Railway, a land grant railway built by the West Australian Land Company from Beverley to Albany in 1889, that the township came into existence.

The townsite was initially developed by the West Australian Land Company. The state government purchased the railway and the townsite in 1896 and later formally gazetted the town in 1898, when the population of the town was 226, 107 males and 119 females.

In April 1891 the Premier Roller Flour Mill was opened in the centre of the town by brothers Frederick Henry Piesse and Charles Austin Piesse. The mill provided an important cash market for local wheat growers. Initially the mill supplied flour to the whole of the Albany district, replacing more expensive imports from Adelaide. At that time Albany was Western Australia's principal port. The ground-floor street frontages of the mill were converted into shops from the 1930s, including a music shop, butchers', dress shops, a barber, and tearooms. By 2008 the building was owned by the Shire of Katanning, which sold it for $1 to a private developer who renovated the by-then dilapidated building and turned it into a hotel and restaurant that opened in 2018.

Katanning remains an important centre on the Great Southern Railway to Albany.

 
Map - Katanning (Katanning)
Country - Australia
Flag of Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7617930 km2, Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately 65,000 years ago, during the last ice age. Arriving by sea, they settled the continent and had formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions in the world. Australia's written history commenced with the European maritime exploration of Australia. The Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon was the first known European to reach Australia, in 1606. In 1770, the British explorer James Cook mapped and claimed the east coast of Australia for Great Britain, and the First Fleet of British ships arrived at Sydney in 1788 to establish the penal colony of New South Wales. The European population grew in subsequent decades, and by the end of the 1850s gold rush, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and an additional five self-governing British colonies established. Democratic parliaments were gradually established through the 19th century, culminating with a vote for the federation of the six colonies and foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and wealthy market economy.
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